Making plasma derived medicines available

Recent progress in past two decades in recombinant technology has created the opportunity of production of some of the plasma proteins including coagulation factors using mammalian cell cultures. However, some limitations including productivity, costs and immunogenic risks have limited worldwide availability of these products. Therefore, fractionation of human plasma still remains as the main source of producing wide range of the therapeutic proteins.Plasma contains several therapeutically important proteins. Currently more than 25 of them are commercially available to treat life-threatening diseases. However, unfortunately due to very high cost of treatment with plasma-derived medicines, theses are not affordable for the patients living in developing countries. Local production, importation and /or contract fractionation of locally produced plasma are among the available options for providing plasma derived medicines.